Long story short: if you ever played classic Pokémon, you owe it to yourself to try Cassette Beasts.
Cassette Beasts is made by Bytten Studios, which is a small indie dev that is probably most notable for Lenna's Inception (which I did an LP of if you're curious its right here). It's a monster collector game where you end up stranded on an island, your main form of defense being a cassette player that can "record" monster forms for you to transform into. There's many ways it sets itself apart from the big name in town, a few of which I'll list now:
When I finished Lenna's Inception, my ultimate takeaway was "that was an Okay game, unpolished and with some ugly spots, but it had heart, damn it all, and I cannot wait to see what lessons the devs take from this on their next project". And now that project is here (currently available on Steam and Gamepass, soon on Switch) and I have been jazzed about it the entire time.
I'm gonna review monster designs in this thread when I have more time! woooooo!
Cassette Beasts is made by Bytten Studios, which is a small indie dev that is probably most notable for Lenna's Inception (which I did an LP of if you're curious its right here). It's a monster collector game where you end up stranded on an island, your main form of defense being a cassette player that can "record" monster forms for you to transform into. There's many ways it sets itself apart from the big name in town, a few of which I'll list now:
- The standard format is 2v2, with your main character and a partner against one or two foes as needed. This number is a bit flexible, most notably in the ability you get to fuse with your partner to jack up your stats, merge your movelists, and gain AP faster. All 120 monster forms are eligible for fusion with one another.
- The type chart interactions are not damage multipliers. Instead, you'll apply a buff or a debuff to the target depending on what types are hitting what, with debuffs to the target for type advantage (say, extinguishing a Fire type with a Water attack to drop their offense) and buffs for type advantage (that same Water attack would provide conductivity for a Lightning type, making its moves multitarget). Some rarer interactions even allow you to change the type of the target.
- There's no STAB to incentivize keeping attacks that match your type on your tape of choice. Instead, typeless moves will inherit the type of the user. Everyone can do a basic Smack, but if you're using a Metal type, that Smack also becomes Metal.
- The world map and your progression are both fairly open. You can obtain some movement abilities by recording specific monsters, but you don't need to keep them around to use those moves. If you haven't got any real leads to go for, NPCs in the main town tend to give rumors that point you towards Interesting Things that get logged in your journal.
- This game is aesthetic as hell in a good way. Monster designs lean a little more Digimon than Pokémon, but without the kind of visual clutter the former name tends to invoke. Additionally, without spoiling too much, most of the bosses you encounter in the plot, dubbed Archangels, are like Ultra Beasts but a step beyond. Like, "this is Not From Your World and it is visible, tangible, you can taste their sounds on your eyes and it smells awful".
- There are also gym leader equivalents, but instead of monotype teams, they instead explore a mechanic of the system and make it the cornerstone of their strategy. For example, the first one you're likely to encounter makes use of walls (similar to Substitute) with all the bells and whistles that such a strategy can use.
- Oh, and while this isn't a selling point for me but might be for you: you can possibly smooch most of your partners and they are all adorable.
When I finished Lenna's Inception, my ultimate takeaway was "that was an Okay game, unpolished and with some ugly spots, but it had heart, damn it all, and I cannot wait to see what lessons the devs take from this on their next project". And now that project is here (currently available on Steam and Gamepass, soon on Switch) and I have been jazzed about it the entire time.
I'm gonna review monster designs in this thread when I have more time! woooooo!